Wednesday, November 15, 2017

All of us are fed up with endless telemarketing calls and spam email from banks. Imagine the number of banks and BFSI companies in the country. Imagine the daily one call from each one of them.

As per the survey on debate.org, 94% responded opined that telemarketing should be banned. Companies and good brands can’t remain good by disturbing and irritating potential customers. Banks need to understand telemarketing is an irritation and interruptions.

The good news is there is an alternative and valuable, brand-boosting alternative. This is Content Marketing. More than mere marketing the Content Marketing is about helping customers. Past, present and future.

Someone asked me what do you really mean by Content Marketing?

Content Marketing is a part of inbound marketing designed for specifically targeted people, based on customer personas and stage of their buyer’s journey. This buyer’s journey is different from buyer’s journey we consider in designing customer experiences.

“Pushing out content you want to publish is a lot different than executing a successful content marketing program that connects with customers by delivering meaningful experiences that are contextually relevant.” Ardath Albee, CEO & B2B Marketing Strategist, Marketing Interactions

Content marketing is not merely content creation. It is smart, deliberate content creation and distribution. Today with so many BFSI service providers, customers are most confused.

Confusion about the safety of the money, options for better returns, liquidity, risk cover, financial planning, and the list is endless. Financial literacy is the major concern in India.

As reported in the Mint newspaper in June 2017, “According to its literal definition, financial literacy is the ability to use skills and knowledge to take effective and informed money-management decisions. For a country like India, this plays a bigger role as it is considered an important adjunct to the promotion of financial inclusion and ultimately financial stability.

As per a global survey by Standard & Poor’s Financial Services LLC, (S&P) less than 25% of adults are financially literate in South Asian countries. For an average Indian, financial literacy is yet to become a priority. India is home to 17.5% of the world’s population, but nearly 76% of its adult population does not understand even the basic financial concepts.”

Isn’t the above fact is a goldmine for the banks? Content Marketing is the way to bridge this huge gap of illiteracy.

Educating customers through consistent and deliberate content creation is what the banks should do.

We have about 50 plus Indian banks in India (excluding cooperative and foreign banks) and 76% financial illiteracy means banks are missing this mega financial literacy opportunity. Which means the banks are only focussed on sales. Which means the banks are facing cut-throat competition and red ocean margins.

This must change.

The Social media specialist Michael Stelzner writes in his book Launch,

” Don’t think about people as targets of the sale. The question isn’t who can you land, it’s who can you help? ”

He further writes which is very important,” If you are only focused on the sale, you are missing a mega opportunity.”

Content Marketing has the power to change the scenario quickly. We have JAM based Mobile penetration. Jio lead internet penetration. What we need is the relevant content creation and methodical content marketing strategy.

What banks can do with CM is not only Ebooks, videos, infographics, articles, true stories, calculators but an entire TV Channel.

Content Marketing Institute reports, “Jyske Bank has created one of the most high-tech, in-house television production studios in Denmark. In fact, the company refers to itself as both a bank and a media company. Jyskebank.tv produces amazing financial programming, as well as compelling stories that the bank believes, are relevant to its core audience of younger consumers and small enterprises.“

This is the scale of opportunity. Many new tech banks are coming up in India, existing banks should look at the Content Marketing opportunity closely and seriously.

“Great marketers have immense empathy for their audience. They can put themselves in their shoes, live their lives, feel what they feel, go where they go, and respond how they'd respond. That empathy comes out in content that resonates with your audience.” Rand Fishkin, Wizard of Moz, Moz.

Wednesday, November 8, 2017

Every online reader is busy making new contacts, career move and expand their area of influence. However, everyone agrees there is a life beyond networking, career, job, and business.

At the end of the day, we all are after Happiness, present, and future. This is a Blog about Fitness, Wellness, and Happiness. These are intangibles we all miss in a daily life but aspire for every day.

Monday, October 30, 2017

“Often it is those who live quietly, modestly, and contentedly with a simple life who are the happiest.” Joshua Becker

The biggest obstacle to our happiness is our wrong definition of happiness. If we define something wrong then we will struggle for it, but never will be able to achieve it.

We have beliefs that MORE is necessary for happiness. More money, more things, more houses, more foreign tours, more power, more fame, more, more, and only more is our prerequisite for happiness. Continue reading...

Tuesday, October 17, 2017

“The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.” Bertrand Russell

We are living in exciting times. The internet is the reason for this excitement. Many things which we wanted to learn can now be learned not only online but for free. There are online giants like Khan Academy, Future Learn, Udemy, Coursera and many such online educators offer free as well as paid courses on very interesting subjects. Here I am discussing healthcare related courses which we all need to take up to become better aware of our physical and mental health. Click to know about the courses:

Friday, October 6, 2017

A good stance and posture reflect a proper state of mind.” Morihei Ueshiba (A martial artist and founder of the Japanese martial art of Aikido.)

Most of us are not aware of the importance of the right body postures. We never ever realised there is something like right and wrong postures and we can do something about the wrong postures to make it right.

Emotional intelligence is the ability to sense, understand, and effectively apply the power and acumen of emotions as a source of human energy, information, connection, and influence. -Robert K. Cooper, PhD

When Daniel Goleman’s the books titled Emotional Intelligence and Working with Emotional Intelligence was first published in 1995 and 1998 respectively, Emotional Intelligence was considered a very relevant subject. We all learned how high IQ can get punctured in the absence of EQ. However, in the post dot-com IT era when we have a life more competitive and more stressful, the subject of EQ needs revisiting. Continue reading..

Monday, July 3, 2017

“If we would just slow down, happiness would catch up to us.”― Richard Carlson

Our Happiness has a million of obstacles. We get irritated, upset, tense, and anxious, worrisome for various reasons during the day. It could be small or big, but our concerns are endless and we are tangled in one of the other concerns ignoring the chance to become happy. We are looking for a perfect day to feel happy and we are waiting for that day. Continue reading...

Tuesday, June 20, 2017

When the world is celebrating International Yoga Day on 21st June 2017, it is important to know about Yoga beyond just Asana and Pranayama.

We will now from their wisdom how Yoga can become life-changing engagement for the practitioners. Though Yoga history goes beyond Sage Patanjali, the Ashtanga Yoga, the Yoga we know today was written by Sage Patanjali as Yoga Sutras. He is known as the father of Yoga. Read more..

Saturday, January 28, 2017

We all consider ourselves as religious by visiting temples, doing all kinds of rituals under the pretext of religion, worshipping the Gods and even non-Gods considering them as Gods, making pilgrimages all around the world, going on so-called religious tours on select days, visiting temples and worshipping with worldly expectations, worshipping false gurus, and many many such things.

But alas, nothing of these qualifies as true religious acts if these acts and pilgrimages do not help us achieve what is stated by Swami Vivekananda. Continue Reading.

“He was not bone and feather but a perfect idea of freedom and flight, limited by nothing at all.”― Richard Bach,Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

You are now many years into the present life and fairly experienced about the nuances of life. None of your other experience is more than your experience about the life.

You now know about the words like fate, destiny, luck etc. What I mean by knowing these words is not the literal meaning, but relevance and applicability of these words in our different walks of our life. Continue Reading..

Monday, January 16, 2017

There is an ocean at the bottom of which
there are countless dangerous creatures suffering miserably, beyond the ocean,
there is an island, a place where there is no pain, but only permanent bliss/
happiness and there is a ship sailing in the ocean.

There are many people with different abilities,
knowledge, and resources traveling on the ship. These differences are as per
the standard rules applicable to everyone.

MORE money, MORE sales, MORE business, MORE
profit, MORE growth, MORE success, MORE fame, MORE followers, MORE attention,
MORE social visibility and everything MORE we all are after 24 X 7 days after
days.

Business first is the motto of most of us, whether we are
on a vacation or spending time with the family. Ringing a mobile phone
for a business purpose during our free/family time is a sign of our Busy-ness
and gives us a sense of pride.

Most seminars and conferences are about MORE. The
bestselling books like ‘Secret’ talks about attracting MORE. Continue Reading...

Aparigraha is one of the 5 Yamas described in
Patanjali Yoga Sutras. The other 4 Yamas are Non-violence, Truthfulness,
Non-stealing, and Continence. Most of us know and try to practice the last four
Yamas but Aparigraha has mostly escaped our attention. According to Patanjali
Yogasutras, ” With constancy of aparigraha, a spiritual
illumination of the how and why of motives and birth emerges.”

Aparigraha is one of the virtues in Jainism. It is
also one of the five vows that both householders (Sravaka) and ascetics must
observe. Continue Reading...